Dreams and False Alarms

Surfacing, bobbing, gasping, blathering.

Friday was awful. It was that horrific crashing day when the progesterone really starts to plummet and your whole life flashes in front of your eyes while you wear 3D "your life is crap" glasses. Yeah, that good.

I raged at my therapist for telling me, earlier in the week, that I needed to rebuild my trust in my body, to which I politely replied, "Not until I have some reason to!"  I also said fuck a lot. A lot.  I said mean things about my 22 year old nice who just had her second child with her sort of boyfriend, who she allegedly doesn't like, and her  main goal in life to get tattoos and piercings. Oh, and don't even let me get started on the fact that she never even sent a thank you (even a verbal one through my mom who was at the baby shower) or a written note for the $100 Wal-Mart gift card I gave her--ya know, the place she buys her formula and diapers. For the moment, she can just suck it. Yeah. I'm feeling really nice.

Also, if you are my friend IRL, I can't imagine you will be able to take this any other way than to be hurt, but it is really painful for me to open your holiday cards. Please keep sending them, in the part of me that isn't burned into a little black cinder, it is nice to see how your children have grown, but the rest of me just weeps. Weeps at the sight of all of that adorable abundant child-ness.  If we don't have a baby by next year, I'm seriously considering sending a picture of our cats. I know I could just not look at them, but I want to. I want to be normal and happy, and enjoy other peoples happiness, but when you are coming off a miscarriage, or a failed IVF, it's just a little hard to be rational.

So back to Friday. I feel, and especially that day felt, like a colossal failure. My work, my business, my reproductive organs, my everything.  I just had no place in me that felt good at all. Ok, that isn't completely true, my husband, my marriage and my cats were exempt from that shit storm.

The reason I most likely miscarried is a chromosomal abnormality. It's the most common reason for a woman my age. Furthermore, husband and I thought I'd be ovulating a little later in my cycle than I did, and we were, shall we say, injudicious with our timing. So there is a possibility that for once, at the ripe old age of 39, I actually might have gotten pregnant by having sex with my husband. Hopefully the baby wasn't too far gone, like last time, and they'll be able to culture some of the cells. It would be good to know if it was the translocation, or just old eggs. No matter what the reason is, we still lost our baby, and choosing what to do next is daunting. If it was the translocation, do we take another whack at donor sperm and my eggs? If it wasn't do we chalk it up to regular 39 year old miscarriage (oy) risk, and try donor sperm, or do we just throw in the towel and go for DE.

Sprogblogger, proceed with caution...

AND THEN...what if that doesn't work. It doesn't work for 20% of people. Yes, I am allowed to think about that. We have been on the wrong side of every fucking statistic we've come up against, why should this be different. We can't afford to do shared risk--it's 31K plus meds, plus donor compensation. Yeah, we'd need a serious cash infusion to make that seem even reasonable. So when I said in my last post that DE was the bottom of the financial and emotional barrel, I didn't mean that we didn't value it, or even feel like it was our best bet, it's just that it's our last chance at pregnancy, and anytime "last" is in the equation, it takes on enormous weight. Of course, after we rob a few banks we could do adoption (even county adoption costs money--they don't just give those babies away).  Yes, I am feeling a little angry and bitter.

Yesterday was better, I did the laundry, I made some very thick bean soup, I baked some bread, and caught up on some movies and TV shows, attend at all times by at least 2 of my three cats.  Little furry bundles of love.  Many multi cat households struggle with the relationships between the kitties, but our kitties are very compatible. We have two boys and a girl. The girl kitty is 6 months old and so cuddly and playful. There are times when Husband and I just marvel at how lucky we got with this little one.

Today I am determined to get a tree. Part of my funk on Friday also feeling like I didn't have the energy to do it for us any more. Husband major holiday tradition involves Chinese food, not too hard to honor. Over the last three years I've tried to set the stage for welcoming a child into our home, I've made some stabs at holiday traditions, but they all get squashed under the weight of all of this fucking loss.  So, today I going to drag him away from his desk, where he sits to make the all important money for all this fruitless baby making mishigas, and try to have something resembling a good day.

And I'll probably cry some more. But oddly not for the baby itself, the way I did for Sparky, who seemed so real, so inevitable, but for all the faith I've lost; for all the time that has passed; for all of the fear I have about all of the next steps; and most of all, my fear that I'll never recover. That even if we do finally get our child, I'll always be this broken, sad shell of a mother.

Full Contingency Living**updated

I am not doing so good today.

I managed to keep the fear of the baby being dead on the periphery through most of the weekend, but this morning, it has crawled up into my head, and won't be shaken loose.

There is no escaping the realty that my breasts have deflated a bit, and are less sore, and even if one of the baby sites says that might happen around 8 weeks, it just feels like a bad sign.

At one point, as I lay in bed half asleep, the voice of Henry Kissinger said "Your baby is dead." I'm not one to put a lot of faith in former secretary's of state speaking to me in my dreams, but it was spooky.

I realized earlier in the week that every time I go to the bathroom, I run through the contingency plan of what I will do if there is blood. What I will move around, when I will get the D&C, what I'll say on the blog, who I'll email, what I'll do about work.  Of course, I could stop myself, but it is this kind of odd calm that comes over me as I plan what to do. It's an awful sort of calm.

This morning, as I lay there, I thought "If the baby is dead, how do I face Christmas?" I'm woefully deficient in holiday spirit as it is (not a life long condition), but I can't imagine how  to do it. How to pull it together, to hold it together. Of course, I don't have to, but how much more of living can I opt out of because I'm in so much pain?  My work, which I worked so hard to get established in is limping along, my best friend (or former best friend) cut me off over something I wished she'd have worked out with me, and I can't seem to find the juice to push through and get excited about anything. Of course I have plenty of reason for all of this, but ack. It's hard. One thing I can say is that my family is as supportive as they can be, and my husband is the best, and my marriage is definitely stronger for the experience of infertility, and my cats are a constant sources of joy. BUT. I'm at a loss. If we lose this baby...what?  What. How. How do I do it again? What is left to pick up? I don't knit, I have no plan. No contingency plan for what to do next.

And maybe the baby is fine, and I'm all worked up for nothing. But I'm so scared, scared of the baby being dead, and of my own deadness that it feels too hard to hold onto the possibly that the baby is ok, and that I'm going to be ok. I've been through crappy times before, heck a lot of times before, and I will be ok again. But it feels so hard to believe in this moment.

**I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow at 2:30--Dr Calm offered it because she knows how anxious we are.

Upon further refelction, uh meaning when I'd calmed down a bit, it occured to me that my breasts haven't shrunk, but they don't hurt as much. Perhaps it is because they aren't growing right now. If it's anything like puberty,they hurt when they are growing, but not when they aren't.

Thanks for all the reassurance and sharing your stories, it really helps.

For once, the internet was reassuring

So, after all the fabulousness that was this Monday and Tuesday (making it to 8 weeks, and seeing the baby 2x in 2 days), my progesterone level came back at 9.9. For those of you not in the know, that is not optimal. It's not insurmountable, but it's not great.

Essentially it means that my placenta, such as it is, isn't make a huge amount of progesterone. The treatment for this is progesterone supplementation, which I've been on since the IUI, so there's not much else to do. I did ask the doctor if I could increase from 1 pill 2x a day to 1 pill 3x a day, and she said "it couldn't hurt." But she was also not very concerned.  she told me about a patient who had a level of 2, and that child is now 22 years old. So clearly 9.9  isn't too bad.

From what Husband and I can tell from our extensive googling, low progesterone can trigger a miscarriage, because the low level triggers the uterus to shed the lining.  But, there isn't a clear indication, except from one site that wasn't a medical site, but rather one with a lot of angels clutter, that probably said "if you've exepreinced infertilty, you weren't meant to be a parent" so I just stopped reading that one!

Dr Calm, wonderful woman that she is, said "I'm not concerned, some patients need to stay on supplementation through 14 weeks, but given your history, I'm happy to do an ultrasound for you next week to check to see if there is a heartbeat and that the baby is still growing." Husband has an all day conference call that he can't get out of on Monday, so we're going in on Tuesday at 2:30.

Part of me feels scared, and part of me feels like, well, like maybe it's still going to be alright. The internet is practically littered with happy outcomes--women who's P4 levels were lower or the same as mine who are hold perfectly healthy babies right now. As the title says, for once, the internet was reassuring.

Also, Julia at Uncommon Misconception had a similar situation to mine: good betas and ok P4 and then it dropped and she started bleeding, now me, no bleeding (WHEW), but is has dropped from a high of 27 to 10.  One of the things that I have wondered is if I have a slight luteal phase defect--not one that occurs every month, but might be on and off. One of my friends who is a doctor reads this, so she will probably tell me I am out of my mind, but one of my pet theories is that maybe I didn't have a great corpus luteum, and that in this part of the pregnancy when the placenta is about to take over, the corpus luteum is running out of steam, but the placenta isn't ready to take over yet. (**Yup, friends says I full of it, and to not believe my crackpot theories!) The endometrian, doesn't show up in your blood stream (but the prometreum and the shots do), so maybe in my uterus it's like a 40, but in my blood its a 10.  Again, this just me speculating.

Anyhoodle, please please please let my baby be alive and growing on Tuesday.

Off to the chiropractor and to make Rugelach with my mom.

It's the Trauma, Stupid!

I tried to come up with a better title, but that one just stuck.

On Tuesday I was struck by the realization that every time I imagine the 8 week ultrasound on Monday, I replay the 8 week ultrasound with Sparky.  I even manage to transpose the office suites (we'll be at a different office next Monday), but the outcome is always the same. No heartbeat. Husband and I weeping into each others arms. Sending out an email saying "no heartbeat." Updating the blog. Going in for the D&C. More weeping.

And of course, you and everyone else can tell me it's going to be fine, and that you have a good feeling about this, but me, I've got no good feelings to access.

The key to surviving being triggered by a traumatic situation is being able to remember that you are not in that place anymore, you are not helpless, you can do things differently (i.e. it's not snowing like it was the day you had your accident, you are in a Volvo etc, your an adult, you know Karate etc), but that is not true of pregnacy. When all of the known things have been ruled out, you just have to go through it, and that is not a very good recipe for managing the trauma aspect of it. Ok, you can do things differently, change protocols, meditate, but you can't avoid the reality of the pregnancy and the fact that whether or not the baby is ok in there is out of your control.   I am helpless to affect the outcome of the ultrasound on Monday. I can't worry it into a good outcome, I can't Zen it in to a good outcome, I have to accept that it is going to be what it is going to be. And yes it could be a good outcome, but it could also be a bad outcome, and the reality of that is pretty disempowering.

And I know, I know, that is what parenting is all about etc etc. But c'mon, ya gotta admit there is nothing like looking down the barrel of the same gun and thinking "I want to be in front of this gun, but damn it's scary."

So, 3 more days (I'm not counting Monday, that day is THE day, so just today and sat and sun) to distract and comfort myself. I've got Foyles War, Midsomer Murders and some more Rei Shimura mystery's to read. Oh,and I guess I could do some work if I really needed to.

Oy.

Old Habits Die Hard or, Please pass the Gatoraid

Nope, not 'cause I'm barfing, but because I seem to be dehydrated any way. 

On Thursday I fell up the stairs twice in one day, and then on Friday, I slipped going down the stairs and sad down hard.  Nothing too major, but a little disturbing anyhow. Yesterday I was standing at my closet and I had a dizzy spell, so Husband made me call the doctor. She said that it was normal to feel dizzy, but that I was probably not drinking enough, and to get to it. She also said my shortness of breath was normal, but I think I need an new bra to accommodate my lungs which are insisting on inflating over and over again, and my normal bra is squishing me too much.

What I realized is that plain water tastes pretty bad to me (ours is filtered and good tasting anyway), but that what I really want is straight juice, not cut, not with bubbly water, just straight juice. As any good dieter knows, juice is the devil, and must be cut with water, so I was resisting it.  But in light of the light headedness, I'm just gonna go ahead and drink whatever the hell I want, including Gatorade.

I think week 5 was worse in terms of feelings of morning sickness (or afternoon sickness), and then one really bad day on Tuesday, and then intermittent queasiness every day, but not too bad.  I really hope that I am just one of those women who doesn't feel too sick, but has a healthy pregnancy anyway.  Otherwise, other indications are good, still no bleeding, minor teeny tiny cramps in the uterus, and exhaustion starting at any point after I've allegedly had a good nights sleep. Oh, and don't ask me to eat deep dish pizza or anything with tomato sauce. Also, ham is my new best friend.

I have moments of crippling dread and fear, and then other periods of calm and a sense that maybe this will work out.  We have our next ultrasound on the 7th, a day we hope will not live in infamy.  It's the 8 week ultrasound where we found out that Sparky had died, and so making it past that will be a huge step. 

Even the cat is crossing her paws hoping this one will work out!

6 weeks after all!

 

In a classic House of Dreams style, we argued with the doctor about dating the pregnancy, and she, who has the fancy letters after her name, said 6 weeks, which only increased the tension. But then, the moment the image came up on the screen, there was the little heart beating away!  She made a full sweep, and found only one. Whew.  Well placed, heart beating, what more could we ask for? Not a thing. She tried to get the heart rate, but she said that it's hard at this age. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

To dream the impossible dream

This was what I found myself singing yesterday morning. Seems like the right theme song, eh?

Husband and I are both a bundle of nerves this morning.  We are prepared that we won't see a heartbeat, but of course, we need to see a gestational sac, a yolk sac and if we are extremely lucky the fetal pole. Oy.

I'll update from my phone--for good or for ill.

And let the vacillation commence***updated

So, after all of my hand wringing and logic, and then reverse logic maneuvers earlier in the week, a friend who is a Radiologist emailed to say, 7 weeks is when they really like to do them, 5 weeks will likely just freak you out, and 6 weeks is ok with her. She made her arguments a lot more cogently than that, but the upshot was, Husband finally voiced his feelings about not wanting to do the ultrasound on the 23rd, and I admitted that I was a bit scared of it, and how it would be both reassuring and not so reassuring. So I've split the difference: I nabbed an appointment for the 30 ( abt 6w3d), and kept the one for the 23rd, and left the doctor a message about whether or not to come in on the 23rd at all. Whew. I feel good enough about this, but ya know, I won't feel good about anything until it's clearly in the ute, clearly alive, and healthy. And then we'll negotiate with my inner mafia, eh?

In symptoms, small meals are becoming a must. I often eat a largish lunch because I have to work from late afternoon through evening, and that is NOT a good idea. Today I had cereal at 5:30, eggs and toast at 8:30 (seemed like too much, even though it was really small), and then just ate apple and almond butter. Oh, and I had a mid morning pastry (morning bun--nary a pep from my digestive tract, guess the baby likes butter, flour and sugar).  The nausea seems to just flash on, as soon as I'm a little hungry, and then I have trouble getting a deep breath. My allergist told me that the reflux acts like asthma, so when I get that feeling, I nibble, and it seems to help.

The peeing has begun. I never really got the peeing thing with Sparky, only at night, but now, it's happening a lot. One cup of water = 3 trips to the bathroom.

Yesterday I managed to freak myself out a bit, but I didn't consult Dr Google, no that's not entirely true, I looked up round ligament pain, which I did have with Sparky because of all the inflammation after the IVF cycle.  But, I didn't look up ectopic pregnancy. I was very strong. I had some pain in my left groin area which I think is my psoas muscle and bit of constipation. I know, lovely.  I stopped by the Pilates studio I love and got some instruction on what and how to stretch, and a few stretches later, and I'm feeling better.

Hang in if you can, it's just gonna get more angsty and graphic. Oy.

 

***The  doctor wants to see me on the 23rd! YAYAYAYAY! I want to go, now I just need good news.

A wee change in plans

So yesterday, when the Zen was leaving me an I was obsessing over how to figure out if my 'baby' was a 'blighted ovum' via any little piece of data I posses (yeah, all I did was freak myself out), I realized that the day of my ultrasound (Nov 23rd), would only find me 5w3d pregnant, and that would probably be too early to reliably tell if there was a real baby developing in there. I think what happened was that my nurse, who primarily deals with IVF, counted two weeks from my IUI rather than 5 days from my IUI which is the earliest I could have conceived (meaning the wee embryo would have descended in the the ute), and thus my ultrasound should have been the Friday after Thanksgiving, but since they are only open for retrievals/transfers and emergencies. Oy.  Of course, the following Monday is currently booked or locked (they lock aspects of the schedule, and then unlock them later...)  So, at this point, I don't have an appointment for an ultrasound. But I will, but I don't.

My breasts are still less than completely agonizingly sore, but they are sore, and I don't get to freak out about it, or so I'm told.

I'm continuing to have the post lunch pre dinner nausea and exhaustion, which descends between 12 and 2 and lifts around 6.  I'm thinking me and Cold Case are gonna get to be real good friends.

Yesterday I finally started to have a little bit of cramping--I'm taking this as a good sign, because my tendency is to make everything an emergency. It is very mild, and short and not painful, but surprising. I am not a cramper in general, so just feeling my uterus is sort of jarring.

Another really odd thing is that I'm warm. Duh, but still, for a person who is usually cold, to throw off her bathrobe and bemoan the fact that the heat is on in the morning when she comes into the kitchen, is weird. Also, iced mint tea in the am. Yum. Again, I love HOT tea, but this must be part of the symptoms.

I feel sort of icky in the morning, but not anything like the afternoon. 

So I'm just going to try to chug along, and not get to freaked out. Yeah, that'll be easy.

Sevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysixsevenfiftysix/sevenfiftysix...

This is what I repeat to myself when I start to get anxious about the viability of this pregnancy.  It isn't any sort of guarantee, but it is what I have to hold onto at the moment.

As far as symptoms go, Dr Google assures me that until 6 weeks, I can't expect to have too many.  I am beyond bloated, it's really quite, uh, impressive. And from the TMI stand point, my tail pipe emissions have prompted my husband to note that this is going to be a long 9 months.  It doesn't really seem to matter what I eat, the result is the same--body is doing it's best to extract every last molecule of nutrients from my food.  And it is, in its own way reassuring.

I am eagerly awaiting the onslaught of breast tenderness, but keep reminding myself that when I was pregnant with Sparky I was extremely bloated, all over, from being on the verge of hyper stimulation from the IVF cycle, and that at about 7 weeks, my breasts REALLY started to hurt, and get veiny and the transformation of the nips was astounding (pinkish brown to purple). They have been getting progressively more tender and a sleep bra has been included, so there is some way I can reassure myself.

I'm also intermittently nauseas. If I eat a piece of toast first in the morning, I'm fine, but if I don't, not so fine. The worst is afternoon--it seems like whatever I've eaten earlier backs up, and just sits there.  Also, do not offer me anything with cinnamon. I love cinnamon, but it can make me nauseated in a nanosecond.  My husband likes chai tea, and to me, it just smells horrible. Aside from that, the bionic sniffer isn't too strong.  But certain things taste more bitter to me than usual, and that is oddly reassuring.  I'm also having heartburn on and off, so that seems positive. I'm also getting a wee bit of insomnia. I'm not anxious, or hungry or anything, but I'm awake at odd hours of the night and cant get back to sleep.

One thing that hasn't happened, so far, that happened by day 5 of my pregnancy with Sparky, was brown spotting. I haven't had a speck of spotting, brown or otherwise, and I'm hoping that trend continues.  I do have the afternoon endo.metiran gush, which gives me a few hours of stress. But I keep reminding myself that if it were blood, and it were that thin and gushy, I'd know immediately. The brown stuff is more like sludge, and doesn't' give you any warning.

One other unfortunate thing is that I'd let my weight sort of pile up. I was planning to go back to a lower carb way of life during the ramp up part of the DE cycle, and increase my Pilates workouts (from about 0 to at least 2) so that I'd be in a better place with my body if I got a positive out of the DE cycle. Best laid plans etc. So I'm starting this pregnancy in my fat pants.  And let me tell you, with all the bloating, there has been some rubber-band button action already. Ugh.  I bought a pair of pretty stretch cords earlier in the week, so hopefully I can make them last through at least week 8 (which is the week we found out that Sparky had died, so that's gonna be a bit of a nail biter for us). And I do have maternity jeans, but they require a longer shirt.  I'm clearly not going on a diet, but oy. I'm not a big fan of the Bella band--it just feels awkward and lumpy.

I can't believe that tomorrow is the 1 week anniversary of getting my first ever positive HPT, and that lovely high HCG number.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say my worry level is about a 4. For me, this is practically Zen detachment.  I find myself excited, and hopeful more often than I imagined I could ever be.  What a difference a year and a half, and heck of a lot of grieving has made.